All Fall Down
by Swiss Army Knife
Summary: After the Kyuubi, Konoha faced Reconstruction. Iruka holds a secret from that time, and discovering it may undermine everything Naruto ever believed about his sensei.
1. There Is a Harbor

Author's Note: The image of the Kyuubi standing like wrath and desolation over a torn Konoha has stuck in my mind for a long time. This story exists because I wanted to write about the inevitable Reconstruction that must have followed the containment of the Kyuubi, and also because I wanted to know what might make a teacher and a guardian out of a war-orphan. Be aware: this tale is old-school, as it was written long before canon had established anything about the Kyuubi.

 **All Fall Down**

by Swiss

* * *

 **Chapter One – There is a Harbor**

* * *

Naruto could hardly remember a time when he hadn't known this place, these walls. The smell of it came to him at unexpected moments, especially when he was away from the village. He'd be shaking out his pack for extra rations or pressing his nose into the collar of a favorite shirt as he yanked it over his head, and there it would be, all tangled up in the threads: Home-smell. Ramen and musty old parchment and a clean, salt-and-shell soap that was made, not bought.

It was in his hair, still damp from the shower as he made his way down to the endmost apartment. Though it was late, he could still see a warm light emanating from beneath the door. It was accompanied by a murmur of voices as he pushed inside.

A yawning grade-schooler was waiting, terrycloth rag clutched under his chin. "Took too long," he complained, reaching for Naruto's tub of soap and other bathing accoutrements. "Sensei says only kids can sleep in here – no bugs – so I hafta go wash."

Chuckling, Naruto bore his knuckles into the shaggy hair. "You're lucky he doesn't shave your head," he said, ruffling his own unorchestrated blond thatch in rueful memory. "The first time I slept over he claimed I had lice."

A theatrical shudder. "Nooo."

Naruto nodded toward the bath. "Hurry, then. Have you eaten already? Good. Where is he?"

A pointing finger indicated the kitchen where Naruto's sensitive nose could still detect the lingering remains of dinner. He licked his lips; when he'd gotten in from his mission he'd gone to his own apartment first, but one look at the bare cupboards and the cold, empty corners and he'd taken off for home. His true home, where there was food and safety and where he – like so many others – was always welcome.

He had to step carefully over a few quilted mounds as he passed to the source of the orange light. At the threshold he paused, barefoot against the wooden floor, and peeked inside. Warmth hit him hard at the sight of the familiar round table, and at its head, Iruka-sensei. He watched the man recline, stroking the bangs of a careworn child seated on his lap, and it evoked a memory so strong that Naruto could almost remember the feeling of the man's arms. He had once sat just like that, sprawled on his belly with his forehead dug into Iruka's neck.

There were a few other children, and their faces lit up when they spotted him. As one of the oldest, he was always treated to all the adoration due to a big brother. However, no voice was more welcome then the one which echoed last, a resonate tenor he knew by heart.

"Naruto." Iruka-sensei greeted him fondly, eyes crinkling. He teased, "You took so long in the bath I was starting to think we might have leftovers."

"I had to work up my courage!" Naruto dramatized, rubbing his arms and shivering so that the youngsters giggled. "Your neighbors are stingy! There's never any hot water."

"You do, as I recall, have your own apartment," Iruka reminded him.

"Aw, Iruka-sensei, it's so boring there! And anyway, I know you get lonely."

One of the brats seized his impetus. "That's why we come too," she said. Her mousey hair was too thin, like her face. "Because you're lonely."

Iruka looked around at the nodding faces, all murmuring that, yes, that was the truth of it, and his eyes burned just a little bit – Naruto could tell. "That's right," he agreed. "I don't like to be alone."

Routine carried on after that; Naruto helped himself to what remained on the stove – a sizeable portion that had no doubt been set aside just for him – while Iruka hurried those who remained awake into their long shirts and bed clothes. Naruto could hear him murmuring a lullaby in the next room, and hummed along as he started eating his supper. He imagined a time when _he'd_ been the one pressed between borrowed covers and lulled to sleep with a song. It drifted low, in and out of his memories, one of many he'd heard in the night:

' _Lie, lie, little baby –_

 _The night that dims has winked its eye._

 _It moves the moon, slow in a circle,_

 _But it's always the same, so never you fear.  
_

 _._

 _The waves wash the daylight out of the tide pools._

 _The clouds stir up navy, purple and grey._

 _In the grass, the toad blows up its belly_

 _While the crickets sing, 'Bye, bye, bye'  
_

 _._

 _So too, lie, lie, little baby,_

 _Still in the night, under black blankets of sea._

 _Under stars like eyes, you lie there sleeping,_

 _And do not fear – I'm watching you.'_

Soon after the refrain faded, the floor boards creaked. Iruka paused to lean against the doorway, obviously tired, and it struck Naruto in that moment that he'd passed up his old teacher in height. Reflexively, he flexed his own fingers, wondering when that had happened.

"Well, the hero is home at last." Iruka was grinning broadly, and – Naruto thought – proudly. "I heard about it this morning."

The young man shrugged in a way that was indifferent to his growing celebrity, and completely unmoved by the rapidity with which gossip moved through a ninja village. Concerned, he gestured to the place beside him. "Come sit down, Sensei. You look dead on your feet."

Iruka chuckled, but did as he was asked. "Mother hen," he challenged, and pursed his lips when Naruto stammered with outrage, unable to believe that _he_ was being called such a thing. It was the comfortable banter of two people who had known each another for a long, long time.

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "A lot of kids tonight, Sensei. I saw two already asleep when I came in."

Iruka confirmed this with a shake of his head. "I hope it's only temporary." He tapped his fingers idly as he spoke, a nervous gesture Naruto recognized. "Their father was due back from a mission yesterday. With luck, he'll return in the next few days."

He didn't say what would happen if he _didn't_ ; obviously there was no other family if they were staying with Sensei. Naruto leaned heavily against the table, taking a moment to digest the news. It was a familiar story; he had heard variations of it dozens of times, and many more that were far worse. Strays, runaways, the abandoned, the abused. They congregated here, somehow, drawn by whispered word of mouth. Iruka bound up their wounds.

As he thought about it, an old strain of inquiry sparked deep in Naruto's mind. As a boy, he had taken for granted the shelter of Iruka's provision, only realizing later how odd it was. How odd Iruka was. He didn't know much about the way Iruka had grown up, only that he'd lived during the Reconstruction, and that there had been things so badly wrong during those times that nobody ever spoke of it. Most of the time it didn't bother him, but on nights like tonight he wondered. ' _Sensei'_. That was the word Naruto used for the zealous guardian he knew. He could even fathom ' _prankster'_ , since Sensei could be creative in rebuke; certainly, his students often groaned over his skill. Before that, though? Naruto didn't know the Iruka that predated the one who had always been his teacher.

A hand descending heavily on his shoulder shook him from his contemplation. "You must be more worn out then I thought if you're already drifting off. Why don't you stay over, Naruto? We have space."

Following behind him passively to appropriate more bedding, Naruto wondered, _'How did you get here, Sensei?'_

How did someone who'd had no parents, who'd grown up alone, learned to reach out to other fatherless children? How did an orphan learn to cradle a baby? Who had taught him to care? Naruto wondered. Because he'd learned all that from Iruka.

* * *

His questions weren't easy to dismiss once Naruto thought to ask them. In the days that followed, they came back to him at odd times, leading him to investigate before he even realized what he was doing. First, it was just casual questions to older shinobi when he was out getting a bowl of ramen or when he was stopped for news from outside of the village. Some inquiries were answered freely, while others were shied from, but no one knew much about the boy who'd survived to become the last Umino in Konoha.

In the end, he might never have found out anything further if he hadn't gone to visit Sakura. She was working at the hospital, and after he'd kissed her cheek and said goodbye, he was hailed by a familiar voice when he was passing a recovery room. It was Genma.

The man was propped in an uncomfortable looking chair, placed beside a bed occupied by Namiashi Raido. Bandages peeked from beneath the edges of the blanket, but he seemed to be stable. In spite of this, Genma seemed a little drunk with weariness, strident lines under his eyes.

"Hey," he said hoarsely. "They tell me Iruka brought him in from the mission room. Internal bleeding. Next time you see him, tell him I appreciate that. You tell him thanks."

Naruto nodded, unsurprised to hear about sensei's timely intervention. Iruka had a knack for it. This wouldn't be the first time his attentiveness had allowed him to aid a wounded comrade. "I'll tell him."

For some inexplicable reason he lingered, watching these veterans as they played out the tired old scene of injury and vigil. They'd been acquaintances since he was a child, but Naruto realized he still didn't know them well. However, he had once passed the two jostling Iruka in the mission room, teasing him about where he kept the roll of bubble wrap he intended to wrap them all in. It made Naruto think about how long the older men had been in service together and gave him the nerve to ask, "Genma, did you know Iruka-sensei before his parents died?"

The Tokubetsu jounin's lips narrowed. Naruto was known for his impulsive way of speaking, but even from him the question must have seemed to come from nowhere. Genma eyed Naruto speculatively before finally making a jerky motion towards the end of the bed. "What's this about?" he asked once Naruto was seated. "What are you up to?"

Naruto prevaricated, glancing around the room, then down to his hands. Genma was watching him impassively, and Naruto realized with a jolt hat it was first time he had seen him without a needle working between his teeth. Finally, he cleared his throat and began to speak, hoping he could find the right words to explain. "He always looked after me, even when the council was making it hard on him. Even when everybody hated me. Now I'm an adult, and he still looks out for me."

From the bed, Raido sighed and both his visitors paused to gaze at the scarred cheek and chin peeking out from the blankets. When their eyes met again, it was with quiet understanding. There was more than one person breathing in this room because of Iruka's capacity to care.

"I never thought about it much when I was younger," Naruto continued. "That was just the way Sensei acted. Now, though… Well, I've been asking around about him, trying to find out what he was like before we met, but nobody wants to talk about _those times_."

Once again Genma took on that weighing aspect, as though he were deciding what to share. It was so _frustrating_ , all the secrets that hovered around like gargoyles. But that only fueled Naruto's desire to know even more. "I knew Iruka," Genma said finally. "His father was a good shinobi, if a little harsh, and everyone knew his mother because she was a specialist. Then I was on active duty and that was all anybody thought about until the Kyuubi."

Kyuubi. The very word seemed to make the air taste yellow and sick, interrupting Genma who reached over to the bedside where a pitcher of water sat, sweating. He tiredly filled himself a glass.

"Anyway, after that I didn't see Iruka again until both of us were a lot older. Though one hears things."

"Like what?"

A keen peridot eye caught his own, shrewd and a little fierce. "I want you to listen to me, kid. Your sensei is a good man, but we're all every kind of messed up. Goes with the territory, and for those of us who remember the old times – well, maybe we're more messed up than most."

Suddenly the grey in the man's hair and lines of wages of worry seemed to stand out starkly against his cheeks and forehead. Naruto watched, mesmerized, and thought of Sensei who had his own creases, usually making happy little V's at the corner of his eyes. It occurred to him that he was looking at an endangered being: Genma, Raido, and Iruka…they had all outlived their life expectancy.

Naruto swallowed.

"Look, it's not my secret," Genma told him, leaning back and resting one hand against the hospital sheets, very near Raido's. "Still, I think he would tell you. The worst that could happen is that he'll say no, and then you'll have to act like a ninja."

* * *

Naruto didn't say so, but he had already poked through the entry level and intermediate files and found little about Iruka during the Reconstruction Period but the most uninteresting notations. Excerpts from them went through his mind as he moved over the rooftops. It read like a register of dry goods:

 _Post-Kyuubi Census. Status: Umino, Suihou and Kaitama –confirmed dead. Survived by: Minor-M-6/8, Iruka. Location: Unknown. Priority: Low._

The numbers and symbols had bewildered Naruto until he'd found a key to decipher them. Iruka had six years of training at the time of the Kyuubi attack, was male and a minor, and wasn't being housed or provided for by the village. At the time of the report, it seemed they didn't even know where he was. Naruto tried to think of how many orphaned or abandoned children there must have been at that time.

Naruto had found nothing else in the records until almost a year later: _Status: Umino, Iruka – see criminal record._

After that, the rest of the packet had been just as dry as the first part: a graduation certification, academy records, a coffer of mission reports at various levels over time, a teaching certification and subsequent progress, known jutsu, medical history, contact and emergency information.

Yet it was that gap that stayed on Naruto's mind – that year-long gap right after the Kyuubi had been subdued, and the criminal record. He could not, no matter how hard he attempted to bend his brain around the task, imagine Iruka-sensei as a criminal. Iruka had only been ten or eleven years old at the time. What could he possibly have done? Naruto had tried to find out, but the information was nowhere to be found, and even as the village hero he wasn't certain that he could get away with trespassing upon the higher-clearance files. A certain level of leniency was given to snooping – after all, Konoha was a shinobi village – but beware to those who meddled over their heads.

No, Naruto thought. Iruka had taught him that if you wanted to cut down a tree, it was better to saw at the trunk than to hack at stems. And that led him back where he started. To a table in the night with children swaddled nearby and his most precious person looking back at him across the table, blinking in confusion.

"What did you want to talk about, Naruto?"

* * *

Author's Note: Dear readers, this is one of the stories that did not go back up when I reposted, mostly because I didn't consider it one of my best; however, a recent reviewer brought it up by name, and so I thought I would answer their request. Enjoy!


	2. Sheltered by A Secret You Didn't Know

**Chapter 2 – Sheltered By A Secret You Didn't Know**

* * *

"What did you want to talk about, Naruto?"

It was the first thing that Iruka said once the table was cleared and the electric lights dimed in favor of less intrusive lamp light. In the background, soft, breathy sighs kept the house from being too quiet, yet Naruto still felt uncomfortable. Even after so long considering, he felt as though he was on the edge of a precipice.

"I've been thinking about you a lot lately, Sensei," he said finally.

"Oh?" His teacher's smile was lop-sided, the one he wore when he was sure you were up to something.

Seeing it never failed to make Naruto smile himself, and afterwards speaking came a little easier. He gestured around the apartment, to the sink full of dishes and the table surrounded by chairs and the ambient sounds. "Why do you put up with all of us?"

There was more than one response Naruto could have fathomed, but he was still surprised when Sensei started laughing. Not a loud laugh, but a kind of guffawing that carried on for a while in honest amusement. "Naruto," the man admonished, rubbing his eyes. "What on earth made you think of asking that?"

"It's a good question. We've invaded your house, we eat your food. You were barely a kid yourself when I met you, though at the time you seemed so tall." Naruto paused, remembering how awestruck he had been, though in retrospect he realized that Iruka hadn't even been fifteen. "For all the years I've known you, you took care of me."

"Not always as well as I would have liked," Iruka said ruefully. "You deserved much better."

Even though he didn't say so outright, Naruto knew he was referring to their earliest days at the academy. "I understand now why you had to be careful," Naruto said. He knew that Sensei still blamed himself for those intermittent years when he had been so distant and stern, and wished that Iruka could believe that he had long since forgiven him. "But even then, you looked out for me. Why did you do it?"

"I suppose I wish someone had looked out for me."

"Did no one ever?"

Iruka looked at him, his mouth turned down. "What exactly are you asking, Naruto?"

Naruto searched for words to explain. "When I was a kid, I would watch the old soldiers. The ones who had bad scars or missing limbs."

Images bubbled up from his subconscious. Awful flashes of gnashing and mud, and the sensation of bone splintering between his teeth. Naruto shuddered. As a child, those kinds of displaced memories had been horrifying night terrors, impossibly beyond his understanding. With time he had learned to control them, but even now he would sometimes wake up, howling and bawling like a child…

"It must have been really bad," he finished, flexing his fingers against the table top. "The way it messed people up. It must have been really bad."

"Kyuubi."

Naruto flinched, but forced himself to nod. "Yeah. I was talking to Genma, and he said the people who grew up in that time, that they're –" He thought of Kakashi-sensei, and so many others. Shinobi had a high propensity for crazy anyway, but among the generation that had proceeded him, dysfunction was more a state of being than an exception to the rule. In comparison, Iruka seemed as constant as the tide. Yet his formative years had also been during a time of war.

Finally, the words he had really been wanting to ask found their voice. "What happened, Sensei?"

A faint creak from the chair as Iruka leaned back. His expression was thoughtful. "You know, I always expected you to ask me about this. You were a precocious child, always full of questions. But you never did."

"I never really liked history," Naruto admitted, "and when I finally understood, I think I just didn't want to know."

"Why the change?"

Naruto huffed. "I just don't get it. You were so good to me, Sensei. Why? And there's something secret. Genma said I should ask you."

Iruka surprised him by looking fond. "Genma, hm? I'm surprised you didn't just go looking."

Chagrin forced Naruto's chin to plunge to cover his guilt. Scratching the back of his head, he suggested, "Sounds like something Kakashi-sensei would do."

A snort; Iruka's turbulent ongoing hostilities with the sneaky copy-nin had long been a source of private amusement between them. Naruto thought that Iruka should have higher standards, while Iruka himself maintained that you couldn't always chose your friends. He was shaking his head now. "Well, I did always try to tell you that not everything has to be secrets and subterfuge. I guess I would be a hypocrite if I didn't tell you."

There was an edge of _something_ in his voice that made Naruto ask, "Does it hurt to think about it?"

"Sometimes. It's like the ache of an old wound in bad weather." Iruka had several old wounds that bothered him from time to time. As a youngster, Naruto had witnessed him applying a hot compress to his hip, or wincing as he massaged his left knee. "It's not a time most people who survived it like to dwell on."

"No one talks about it," Naruto agreed.

"Well, it will be redefined for the history books, and it may be better that way. Not all things are meant to be preserved. There just aren't words for them."

"Sensei –" Naruto was already regretting this conversation.

Iruka, however, set a hand firmly on Naruto's forearm. "No," he said. "You have a right to hear this. It's your history too, after all. In some ways you may have more a right to this story than anyone else."

And then he began telling Naruto exactly what he had asked to hear.

* * *

The night the Kyuubi came, all of Konoha was called to battle. Not even the children, the least experienced trainees, were sparred. Every hand that could lift a weapon – a sword, a shuriken; a hammer, a hoe – had been called to stand against that which could never truly be defeated. The world-shaker, earth-breaker. Destroyer of men, of man.

The demon fox.

Iruka saw the monster through slipstream images suffused with adrenaline, snapshots captured in broken, brilliant detail. He saw the beast, quivering and molten, its massive body eclipsing the tortured sky. Knotty sinews rolled under fur burnished in the glow of the wildly burning flames, which filled the air with black smoke that stung the throats of the desperate Konoha shinobi.

The beast bore its yellow teeth and bellowed a howling roar so loud that everyone fell back, whimpering as they covered their ears, fumbling to form wards against sheer sound. In a burst of error, Iruka met the eye of the demon, a swirling hole, crazed – like a dog sick with madness. Steaming saliva dripped down from its teeth. It breathed, a throaty noise that resounded like thunder, and Iruka choked on the stench of blood and burning and decay.

Above them all, the tails swung and snapped. Tails – nine tails – that at each lightning oscillation tore through the landscape, churning up great rows of dirt and trees. It lunged, lolling its head, and the front line was decimated, bodies thrown into the air. Blood fell like rain, like the men, in pieces. Iruka heard the screams, not knowing if his own voice was among them.

Someone shouted, _"_ We have to hold it until the Yondaime gets here!" Then the beast lunged again, and the earth ripped and buckled like a living thing under their feet. Iruka felt himself loose contact with the ground, and expected to be thrown under the feet of the monster, but instead unknown arms caught him and held him close. Even after the tremors, they didn't let go. Frightened, Iruka twisted his head back to see his rescuer.

"F-father?" he croaked.

Eyes filled with mist and rain looked down, pulling him closer against a strong chest even while another frontward assault sent men and earth flying. His father's wide, rough hand pressed against his head, shielding his face, his eyes.

Then his mother was there, her lips an unnatural shade of red. She smiled serenely even as the battle raged and said his name, – "Iruka" – yet there was a glazed look to her eyes that sent a spike of fear through Iruka, as though his heart was pumping water instead of blood. He braced her body with shaking hands.

"Father," he choked. "Father, Ma is –"

His father's back was between them and the end of the world. Casting bloodshot eyes over an armored shoulder, the man told his son, "I'll take care of your mother. You get out of here."

Impossible! Fumbling to hold onto both his weapon and his parent, Iruka shook his head. "No. I can't leave you. I'll protect her!"

Iruka would never forget his father's words. He wrenched around and barked, "Don't be a fool! Parents are supposed to protect their children!"

Iruka's mouth snapped shut, so stricken that he barely heard the hoarse call, passing from man to man in the field: "He's coming! Pull the children back!"

From her place kneeling in front of him, his mother put her head against his shoulder, gathering her strength. Then she whispered, "Okay," and slowly straightened. She looked to her husband, their dark eyes mingling, rushing at each other like two headwaters. Then there was only time for the briefest brush of fingertips through Iruka's bangs before his father's arm was around his waist, thrusting him back into the hands of another.

"Get him out of here."

In an instant, Iruka lost sight of his father. "No! Let me go! My parents are still fighting!" He was thrown to the back of the battlefield, shielded by the remaining lines of warriors. Terrified, horrified, he surged to his feet. Just in time to see the enormous light that flashed in a blinding radius from the center of the field. Just in time for the recoil to throw him on his back. Iruka's skull cracked hard against the earth and he gasped, thinking that he might be dying, knowing that he was probably alone. The darkness smothered him with that thought in mind.

Everything was gone.

* * *

When Iruka came shuddering up from unconsciousness, it was to a world of mourning. He had to heave off a heavy body that had fallen on top of him, an unintentional shield. Its eyes stared, unblinking, until Iruka tore his own away. Dazed, he wandered from the eerily quiet field and into the ruined village. The survivors were regrouping, meeting those left behind or searching for loved ones. Rumors floated on their air, snatches of conversation: "Sealed him away again," and, "Dead, no, not dead."

Iruka ignored them all.

He saw the homes, broken like toothpicks, buildings that had entire sides torn away to expose the frame. Fractures of splintered beams and crushed stone lay in piles everywhere, while small fires burned, unchallenged. For a moment he stopped and stared at a body hanging over the jagged wreckage, arm laying free. Its right side and lower body were missing, shredded away in horrible streamers so that the boy could see the meaty, dripping ribs. _Drip, drop, drip._ His eyes followed the blood falling from the cavity, feeling rather than hearing each drop splatter.

Someone else, a woman, pulled wretchedly at the corpse. She wailed, crying for her husband. Then, suddenly, the widow left the man and lurched toward Iruka. She snatched at him, all her weight pressing against him so that he stumbled. Her hands were a sticky mess, and she begged him with huge eyes, insane with loss. "Help him," she demanded, clinging to his clothing. Wretchedly, she pawed at the kunai still fused to Iruka's hand. "Help him. You're a nin."

Frightened, Iruka pulled away from her prying hands and frantic eyes. He shook his head at her, stepping backward even as she collapsed at his feet. He watched, helpless. He could do nothing for her. Her husband was dead.

"Why didn't you save him? You're a nin!" the widow's shriek echoed strangely in his damaged ears as he turned his back to her. He pressed down a sob of his own. Guilty. The first guilt pangs associated with survival.

After that, it was only his search that drove him forward, the last shadow of childhood wandering and the first echo of a soldier's trudge. He clasped his left arm against his side, numbly ignoring the waves of pain that sapped his remaining strength. His hair had fallen free of its band, and it was matted, damp with sweat, blood, or even saliva – he wasn't sure. He walked without being stopped. The exhausted adults seemed barely able to drag in the casualties, and they were stacked together without ceremony. None could be afforded.

Iruka stood placidly in their midst, alone in the carnage. In the end, it was the smell that drew him to the grievously wounded. He searched through the moaning people who had been spread in long parallel lines against the ground. Crushed limbs, missing extremities, the blind, the burned.

At their outskirts, Iruka found who he had been looking for. Numbly, he stood over his parents, staring with a pounding heart. Blood, blood, blood – he could feel his chest throbbing with it. He recognized his father's hitai-ate – now twisted around his neck – but not his face. He could see the muscle in his father's chest, his neck. The crumpled woman lay with limbs askew. He recognized her without effort, even with the raven hair plastered over her face.

With a low moan of thunder, the troubled sky at last found release in the rain, and cold drops began to fall from the sky upon the ruined lives and homes of the Konoha. Iruka watched it fall, harder and harder until the mud rose once again under his heels. Even as the drops splattered against his cheeks, Iruka remained silent.

He didn't cry.

He didn't cry, even when a few weary men came and removed the two bodies. Soon the smell of death would be even more real, as a new fire was lit to burn away the husks, all that remained of countless, nameless heroes.

Iruka watched the flames rise and burn, clutching at the kunai he still held in his hand, and did not turn away.

* * *

 _No tears for the fallen,_

 _No praise for those soon forgotten;_

 _The war-beast makes mass graves for many._


	3. In the Wake of All You Fear

**Chapter 3 – In the Wake of All You Fear**

* * *

It was another morning, and the hesitating sun was watery and heatless. It had been days since the Kyuubi had been released, but nature seemed no closer to recovering. The horizon was still the color of spoiled milk, ashy and choked with the smoke of old fires. Rising against this backdrop was what remained of the guardian trees, charred skeleton vestiges of what had once been a barrier separating the village form the natural forest.

In the village itself, the whole community moved as though under a heavy stone. From their outskirts, Iruka emerged, walking with the crowd filing toward a hastily assembled platform. Two shinobi were standing atop the structure, looking down with red-lidded expressions they had made hard for this gathering and these people.

"Line up. We'll give out all we have. It's up to you to make it last."

Iruka eyed the small quantity of boxes lying at their feet, at least two already half-smashed and spilling their contents. But rations were rations, and so he took his place alone amidst the bereaved adults and half-families. All had come for what remained of Konohagokure's emergency foodstuff, and for the clean water that should have gathered in the cistern for just such an emergency.

There was some compassion in face of the man who looked at Iruka when he reached the front – a child still too plastered with filth to belong to anyone anymore. Gently, he reached out and pushed back the longish bangs so he could see into the Iruka's eyes. "How many?" he dared ask, quietly and without much hope. Then some recognition filled his face. "You're Umino's boy."

Iruka did not allow his eyes to flicker. "He's dead, and I'm just one."

The other shinobi distributing food turned to see what was holding up the line. Eyes that had been forged in ice to cover grief bore down. "How many?" he spat, without prelude.

Iruka repeated himself, "One."

The next words very nearly shook him out of his façade of calm. "How many adults?"

Lost, Iruka shook his head. "B-but –" he tried to murmur, but with a condemning shake of his head, the shinobi jabbed a finger toward the end of the line.

"We don't have enough for you. We have to save it for those who need it more," he said, and then he turned his back, final and awful in his judgment.

Iruka was shaking, his muscles trembling in the face of what had happened. His eyes stung, but the shame of tears was held off by the smallest package being pressed into his hands. He looked up at the one who had recognized his father's name. Then, numbly, he looked down at the tiny ration.

"Careful, little one," the adult said, and ruffled Iruka's hair in the last show of compassion that he would feel for a long time. "Careful with that. Now run, and take care as best you can."

And Iruka did run, out of the line with the package clutched to his chest. Yet when the water reserve came into view, his shoulders slumped. Two men ahead of him were standing in a defeated way, looking over the pale, glistening pool. One, young with pale blond stubble and worry lines at his eyes, shook his head heavily. "It's been contaminated by the runoff from the battle."

The other sighed. His hand was a mangled stump, poorly bandaged. Iruka couldn't determine how many of his digits remained. "We can't drink this," he said.

More people were gathering now, finding, as he had found, no refuge in the water. He felt the press of their despair against his back, along with the residual anger that was beginning to burn. Faces that had been kind twisted, gentle hands pushed and voices rose. Iruka slipped away. He shuddered, but felt no sorrow. The apathy ached, but it was a dull, failing thing. He clung tighter to the diminutive package with his uninjured arm.

The recent destruction had made the village more labyrinthine than before. It had always been a complex structure; now it was a maze of dark, narrow streets that often ended in piles of debris. Iruka navigated them, avoiding only the deepest shadows.

Before long, he felt his steps slacken and stopped to tilt his head up at the sky. A deeper grey was stirring it, heavy cloud-cover, until the firmament itself looked like a wound. Rain was coming, he guessed, and lots of it. But not the merciful kind that might save them. Too much burning. It would take another two rainfalls at least to clean the air, maybe more.

Iruka knew he needed to find shelter, somewhere dry for his parcel if not for himself, but he felt so heavy. His legs trembled, and pain spiked through his back, his wrists, and especially his arm – amateurishly and hastily set by a preoccupied medic-nin days before. His joints were painful, and he became exhausted easily now. The boundless energy of youth was tied up in food and health and hope, and he felt their absence mightily.

Squatting down, he took deep breaths, one after another. Burning lids slid shut. Just for a moment, he gave into his body's cry for rest. Just for a moment, and then…

A hot, heavy hand against his neck made Iruka jerk, and he staggered as he realized he wasn't alone. Heart pounding, he blinked into the face of an unknown man who had approached his averted back and was now grinning, drawing nearer still.

"Come're, boy," the stranger commanded. A ragged gash had torn his face from ear to chin, and the foul smell of infection pushed Iruka back another step.

A hand groped toward the package Iruka held pressed to his chest, though whether it was for the food or the boy that the man reached, Iruka didn't know. He lurched back as if burned when fingers brushed against his bare arm – despairing at the cold feel of the wall that suddenly reared up against his back.

Glad of the advantage, the stranger let his open face sag open, leering. "Poor babe," he crooned, and his voice was as affected and diseased as the festering puss-maddened wheal that split his skin. His expression was alive with tentative longing. "Father dead, is'e? Oh, poor boy. No mother's tears, yes, I'm sure."

Browned fingernails caked with dirt fingered the package again, but only for a moment. Then his hand darted out like a snake, snatching and holding Iruka'a face with unexpected strength. The crown of his head came back hard against the wall, and he whimpered, a sound that only made the man mutter with laughter.

"So lucky," he was saying. The whites of his eyes were jaundiced, more animal than man. Hand shaking, he petted the dark brown hair falling down over the Iruka's forehead, the pale cheek. "Too small, but no matter."

Unable to bear his touch, Iruka cried out, his voice a shriek of fear in the stifling, secret air of the ally. It rose like an escaping falcon, and his charka – desperate with his need – rose with it; powerful, more than he'd ever successfully sustained before.

Afterward, Iruka stayed, crouching and trembling. He was bleeding, and he held tight to the sodden bandage around his left arm. The tear trails on his dirty face were dry. And the corpse lay there, just there, on the ground, as live and fearful as a deadbolt.

Wordlessly, he stood. He looked for the little square of rations, but darkness and shadow seemed to shroud all the crevices. Nothing. He looked back at the creature he had killed.

He'd seen death, but there was nothing quite like seeing it stare back at you out a cadaver of your own making. He searched for regret in his panting heart, even as the terror was replaced with something frigid and smothering. He toed the creature with his poor sandal, willing himself not to throw up or to spit on it. There wasn't even the thought of searching for valuables. The jounin would have turned away anyone so vile.

Besides, it made Iruka shudder with revulsion even to think of touching him.

Paler, hungrier, and more aware, Iruka turned and made his way onward, wondering where to go.

* * *

The wooden planks against his back were rough, and the nighttime sky filtered through an open ceiling. A few supporting beams still hung precariously overhead, providing some arguable shelter, but those rafters wouldn't last long. Already, the wood was wet and rotting around him.

He looked up into the drizzle, filtered though cloud cover and the mottling of dim stars. His damp clothing clung to him comfortlessly, and his hair cried long, bitter rivulets down his face. He stuck out his tongue, and grimaced at the foul taste of the water.

This ruin was a burned-out shell of a once comforting place. Nothing so fragile as photographs had survived, though Iruka had searched for anything that would remind him of what this building had once been. Anything that would have proved to him that this had once been his home.

Vainly. The fox had claimed even the memory of safety.

The frightening trek through the now unfamiliar streets of Konoha rose to his mind unbidden, and he couldn't suppress the convulsion that shook him. Vulnerability, sick helplessness, pain; he felt them in turn, and then he remembered how it felt to administer death.

A small, lost sound left him like a sigh, and Iruka let his leaden head sink to his torn knees. They still oozed, fresh with the rain, but he hardly noticed as it smeared against his cheek. That, at least, was one good thing about the rain. If it washed away even a little of the blood...

The feel of moisture stayed with him through the night, making his dreams as wet and cold as his huddled body. Eyes half-lidded in the darkness, tearless and hard, he listened for danger even in sleep.

Ha ha. Just like a good nin.

* * *

 _Blameless blood cries tears_

 _That nobody hears_

 _Laughing war beast licks up the drops that they're crying_


	4. It Survives in Hiding

**Chapter Four – It Survives in Hiding**

* * *

The recovery of Konohagakure would not happen in days. It would not happen in months.

The stretches of green produce would never reach harvest; they had been ground into runnels of black mud and gore, which sterilized the land. The village storehouses had been damaged, along with the academy and much of the private housing, and while the Hokage's mansion still stood on Konoha's leveled horizon, it seemed like a relic to its surviving people – dark, unapproachably apart, and silent.

Starvation became the second ravager of Konoha, and the streets became even more dangerous. Finally, something like marshal law had been initiated. Overwrought, the remaining authorities had no time or resources for thieves, murders, and desperate men. Justice was swift, and there were executions for the first time in many years. Iruka used to stop when he saw them and offer up a soft word with folded hands, but at some point he stopped. It was too much for his heart, which was an increasingly dead weight in his chest.

More haunting than the insensibility was the reality that Iruka was no longer a child, a son, or even a nin. The school was shut, and no one had yet stepped forward to take the title of Hokage. For Iruka, the landscape was food, not identity – survival, not meaning. Yet the empty space inside still haunted him, and the question: _'What did I survive for?'_

He might have continued like that, slowly loosing his ability to feel for other people. He would hardly have been the only one. It was only chance that he came across something that would change his life – that would save him. He was making his evening circuit when it happened. He was living a kind of scavenger life in those days, relying on his novice shinobi skills to stay alive – to sort of stay alive. His mother would have wept bitterly at the gaunt, wary, hollow eyed creature he had become.

Iruka hadn't even flinched when he came across the man on the rope. He stood in the wavering shadow, brown eyes following the pendulum-like movement of the hanging body as it drifted in the breeze. Swollen features stared at him above the thick tether wound around his neck. The eyes bulged. They were blue, and fair tangles of hair drifted quietly in the wind.

Iruka watched wordlessly for a long moment, fingering the sharpened tip of the kunai at his side until the razor edge pricked his fingertip. He wondered faintly whether he should cut the man down. He was no longer picky about his corpses, but he doubted that someone who intended to die would carry anything valuable. Civilian clothes, so no weapons. Iruka blinked hardened eyes, then, turning, he left the dangling body to drift.

It was a sound that called him back, something trickling out of a past when he cared. A little cry, like a noise he had once made. Above him, the sky rumbled, and Iruka flinched, restless. He should walk away. His own footsteps would cover any other sounds.

Iruka went back. The corpse hung, but below it was a home. There was an alcove where the steps had been, just wide enough underneath for someone small. Iruka knelt beside it, wincing at the ache that was still in his moving parts, the pervading weariness and pain. "Hey," he whispered softly, into the shadowed shelter. "Hey."

Blue eyes blinked back at him from a face even smaller than his own. It shifted fearfully into the dark as far as the little space would allow, shuddering on a sniffle that shook it's whole body. A child.

Iruka sat back on his heels. He felt the stir of a cold wind, and it made him tremble a little. He pulled his overlarge, 'borrowed' jacket a little closer, feeling vulnerable. Feeling on the edge of something. Then he turned back to the alcove.

"Hey," he murmured again, reaching cautiously into the space, palm open and flat and clear in the dim light. He didn't try to grab hold. "Come on, it's cold here."

Who knew why the child responded to him? Maybe it was something in his voice or maybe he realized there was no one else. Maybe he just needed warmth, another human body to press against. Whichever answered best, the child reached for the older boy and allowed himself to be brought out into their dangerous world.

He buried his face in Iruka's stomach against the sight of the swaying body, gurgling a kind of sob. The tiny hands were fisted against his sides, tight around the fabric. Iruka hesitated before pressing the palm of his hand against the fair head.

This was his first foundling. There would be others, all too helplessly young and utterly alone. Iruka lead them back the ruin of his house, and started living again to keep them fed. They made his heart work again. Anyway, there was no one else.

If they were going to survive, it would be on their own.

* * *

"You brought him back with you," Naruto said. Behind his lips, other words rebounded; _You rescued him._

Something like sorrow seemed to press against Iruka's shoulders, forcing them down. "My family's house wasn't in good condition. I tried to repair it – a tarp across the roof, boards where water or fire had ruined the tatami – but there was only so much I could do. Still, we went back there and I tried to take care of them."

Naruto felt an ache under his ribs; here were Iruka's first orphans, and Sensei had been one of them himself. "Why didn't the village Council do anything?" he demanded. His own feelings about the Council were complicated, but he couldn't understand why there had been no attempt to help.

Iruka said, "At the time it felt like abandonment, but the Yondaime had just died and there was no obvious choice for a replacement. Should the Sandaime return, or should a younger shinobi be named in his place? Who? Something like that had never happened before, and Sarutobi was grieving."

Naruto's felt his chest tighten; his sensei's descriptions were awful. In his career as a shinobi, he had seen war torn places. He had even seen Konoha itself brought low and then rebuilt after Pein's attack. However, at that time there had been leadership and – thanks to Tsunade – precious few casualties. Order had not broken down.

He said so, and Iruka agreed. "Maybe we learned from our mistakes. I'd like to think that."

The way he answered, thickly and with regret, it was as though he were speaking for himself. Naruto felt a sinking feeling. He asked, "Did he die, that boy?"

Iruka sighed, long and deep.

* * *

Lawless times were never kind to children. Predators of all kinds roamed the streets, and people sunk low into their own shadows in an attempt to go unnoticed. It was unsafe even to beg, and the vulnerable, the unsupported – those who couldn't afford to leave or didn't know where to go – suffered most.

By that time, Iruka knew all about suffering. In only a few months, he had lost his parents, his home, his faith in human beings, and any memory of being warm, secure, or full. In place of those things he had gained, over time, responsibility for over half a dozen small, needy mouths, relentlessly hungry and desperately in need of him.

He didn't know quite how it had happened, only that he couldn't bring himself to turn them away. Whenever he tried, the memory of the first man he had ever killed rose to his mind, and then he had them by the arm, tugging them all way the way back to his own inadequate home.

Now he stepped through the hanging threshold, passing the bare frame and its scraps of rice paper. "I'm home," he called.

They came to meet him with hopeful eyes. "Ruka!" one of the littlest warbled, waddling over to fall clumsily against his knees. She clung, just as most of them clung. Iruka wished it made him feel strong and grown up, but mostly he felt inadequate.

"You were gone a long time," a blond boy said, twisting his shirt tail fretfully.

"Shouya," Iruka greeted his original foundling, rummaging deep for the smile he remembered on his mother's face before she died – _It's-going-to-be-okay_. He smoothed the youngsters furrowed forehead, which was as wrinkled as an old man's. "I'm sorry it took a long time, but I found something."

Instant celebration, eager grasping. He emptied his pockets, handing over all he'd accumulated throughout the long day. They cried like baby birds when he fed them, chirruping, a cascade of whimpers. He knew their stomachs hurt. His own always felt like teeth chewing.

Complete satisfaction was out of reach, of course, but it was with less urgent unhappiness that evening fell on Iruka's small cavalcade. He answered the outstretched arms of a petitioning child as they settled for the night, tucking them together so they could be warmer. "Ruu." The toddler cuddled into the space under his chin, thumb in her mouth. Her nose was running and Iruka rubbed it clean. Meanwhile the others drew closer, dragging blankets and jackets and whatever they had left to keep them insulated in the absence of beds.


	5. When the Corner Turns

**Chapter 5 – When the Corner Turns**

* * *

It was the darkest days of the Reconstruction, and Iruka was scavenging.

It was drizzling as the light faded, a tangible grey curtain that made Iruka's muscles cramp with cold. He swiped at his nose and swallowed down an empty longing that he would find something to eat soon. Some of the others had been coughing for days, and he was starting to feel desperate. It made him less cautious than usual – made him wait less before moving across empty spaces, made him scan the area a little less carefully.

' _Just stay out a bit longer_ ,' he kept telling himself. ' _You'll find something_.'

Probably it was his hurry which made him vulnerable, or perhaps it was the rain that concealed those following him. All Iruka knew was what one moment he was leaning over a dank crevice, hopeful that it might lead into an unraided pantry, and the next minute he _heard_ something – a faint sound like the scrape of displaced gravel.

His head snapped up, and he saw their eyes. They gleamed, white around the edges. At first he could see nothing more then that. Then one of them opened his mouth, and Iruka could see his teeth too.

Iruka fled. Fled in the hysterical zigzag pattern of a rabbit under a shadow. Iruka ran, even knowing that it would eventually come down to a fight he would lose. He ran, but not fast enough. It happened as he took a sharp turn into an impassible street. Skidding to a stop, his dark eyes climbed up the obstruction created by the buckled buildings. Then he looked back to see his pursuers – six of them – rounding the corner. His breath was jagged shards in his throat, which tasted like iron, and Iruka swallowed painfully as he drew his frail weapon.

They attacked him all at once, overwhelming him in instant of raw weight and numbers. Only once, he felt his kunai drag on flesh, and then it was crushed from his fingers, his phalanges forced back until he heard them break. Hands clawed his hair, flinging him down. His head crunched against mortar, and after that his vision became a blaze of white stars. Only the vicious driving force of a foot under his ribs kept him from passing out, and even then he was only conscious enough to blink stupidly at his attackers.

He made a wretched sound, crying out though he had no hope of rescue. His scream was swallowed up in the concrete, muffled by the falling rain.

* * *

In the present, Iruka sat with his head ducked low, his expression bleak. Naruto sat tensely on the edge of the chair. It took him more than one try to ask the question, "What happened then?"

His teacher looked up. "Someone stopped them."

* * *

Iruka could feel their hands roughly searching the thin debris of his clothing, satisfying themselves that he had nothing to steal. He waited for them to press him down, for the inevitable, but before it could happen, hoarse shouting penetrated his ears and then his assailants had other things on their minds then pinioning a boy with a head wound.

Iruka's temples throbbed as though they were swelling against broken glass. It made his vision sloppy, skipping around the edges, and yet he saw. Saw men he did not know arrive to turn a beating into a melee. These new fighters had hitai-ate that gleamed from their forehead, and on their sleeves was a symbol in the shape of a shuriken. Iruka recognized the insignia even through the morasses of confusion: The Konoha Military Police.

It wasn't a long fight. A starving child might have fit his assailant's criteria, but armed shinobi known for their swiftness in meting out justice certainly did not. Outclassed, they ran as soon as they were able, and when none remained, the three interlopers approached Iruka. A rescue? Or another kind of trap? Iruka scrabbled back.

The Uchiha who knelt first had severely cropped hair that was turning prematurely gray. When his large hand took hold, Iruka struggled with all his meager strength. It did no good. Intolerant of his flailing, the shinobi merely shook him until Iruka subsided.

Another officer stepped closer and gazed down at Iruka, brow furrowed. When he spoke, his voice was smoky and low like a wood instrument. "You're frightening him."

A gentler pair of hands deposed the bruising grip. Iruka still flinched, but this new shinobi only parted the hair matted against his bleeding scalp. He met Iruka's eyes. "Are you hurt anywhere except your head?"

Iruka couldn't make sense of the question; it had been too long since anyone had shown concern. His silence must have been answer enough. The shinobi observed him with narrowed eyes, then pressed his lips together. "His eyes aren't dilating, and his hand is broken. He needs medical attention."

The first man grumbled, sitting back on his haunches. "We should already be after those poachers. I think that new baby of yours is making you sentimental, Fugaku."

"No one can afford to be sentimental these days," Fugaku answered, but he didn't let go of the firm, supportive grip he had on Iruka. He had very black eyes, like the coats of shinny beetles, and the silver head plate he wore glinted.

Involuntarily, Iruka began shivering.

"He's shaking like a leaf."

The first man seized the word play. "Leaf?" he asked dubiously. "A scrawny one, maybe, if he's that."

A little distance away, the last man picked up the kunai that had been crushed from Iruka's hand. "He did handle this like a shinobi before they disarmed him."

Fugaku blinked, and suddenly his dark eyes became startling, swirling pools of red. Iruka's blood seized, paralyzed under their scrutiny. "Yes," the man confirmed after a long moment of observation, and then blinked again to deactivate the sharingan. He commanded Iruka, "Report! Name and rank."

"He can't be out of the academy."

"He's old enough," Fugaku countered grimly. Iruka couldn't have known it, but he already had one son on active duty, younger than this.

Iruka himself didn't answer. The words of the question seemed intangible, and they had no impact on him. Nor did the insignia of Konoha's police force make him feel secure. A hazy memory from long ago latched onto the cognizant part of his mind, of his father arguing with one of the Uchiha, who was unwelcome in their home and yet could not be compelled to leave because of that shuriken symbol of power on their arm.

The Uchira who had picked up the dropped shuriken, the one Iruka had carried since the battle with the Kyuubi, suggested, "We could take him to the Sandaime. We're due to report in at the Tower anyway."

The grey-haired man crossed his arms. "Are you going to chase all the rats into the sea? It isn't worth the time. And even if we take him back, what then?"

It was Fugaku who decided. "We can't leave him here. We'll have to take him with us." And he reached to draw Iruka into his arms.

It was the wrong thing to do. Though he understood very little else of what was going on, Iruka became hysterical at the idea of being carried away. Instinctively, he bucked with his feet and caught Fugaku in the throat, and while the man gagged, Iruka surged past, disappearing into the maze of alleyways even as he heard the angry commotion of pursuit behind him.

Later, he would wonder what made him do what he did. Maybe it was pure panic, or perhaps the guardian he was trying to be had finally been overwhelmed by the child he actually was. But whether it was whim or fate or disorientation, all good sense fled and Iruka turned his feet toward his last shelter, all while his mind throbbed with hiccupping thoughts like, _'I want to go home'._

All too soon, the familiar façade loomed. The crumbled boundary wall seemed like a forsaken shield, standing around dying yellow grass and the entryway that was like a ragged gash. Iruka almost collapsed when he reached it, staggering against the frame of the door and clinging.

"Shouya," he called as soon as he had breath. "Chiori, Iku."

Then he went very still. Never, since he had taken in his first child, had he come to this door without being greeted by the sound of small feet. Now he heard nothing but an eerie non-response.

"Shouya," he called again, much more timidly this time. Sluggishly, he forced himself to step over the threshold.

He found the children in the main room, where he had left them that morning.

The few pieces of furniture were toppled over and broken. The tarp stretched across the ceiling was gone. And there they were, stretched out on the swollen floor boards, or on the scorched, salvaged tatami. The porous floor had absorbed the blood and already some of the sticky streaks had gone to foam, perforated by tiny pink bubbles.

There was also a long, torn blanket hanging from a rafter, weighted down by a body that turned in slow in circles, with Shouya's blue eyes. He looked exactly as his father had, not so long ago.

Iruka was conscious of his knees folding, but nothing else penetrated the hollow noise in his ears. It drowned out everything else, and he was senseless, unaware when the adult shinobi finally caught up with him and entered the house.

"Gods," Uchiha Fugaku said from behind him.

Iruka only stared straight ahead. He couldn't see anything but the boy on the rope.


	6. And the Bonds Break

**Chapter 6 – And the Bonds Break**

* * *

The lamp cast a moving backdrop against the kitchen table and across the faces of the room's two occupants. It laid their shadows long against the floor, so that they stretched into the other room and over the quiet sleepers. Iruka looked at them over his shoulder. In this light, his dark eyes appeared black.

"Rumors about that massacre followed me for years," he said quietly. "Some of those children had relatives who eventually looked for them. A few details were released, to give them closure."

Naruto couldn't stop his hands from shaking. Anger – _rage_ – bubbled up as he heard the story, which seemed too awful to have really happened, right here in his own village. "Why?"

"I still don't know. There was nothing truly valuable there. No reason for anyone to hurt those children. Someone just killed them."

There was a long moment as both followed their minds back over those old images when a huddled, helpless group of civilian children had died for no reason fathomable in this saner time.

Finally, Iruka continued, "Some good did ultimately come out of their deaths, though I didn't know that until much later."

Naruto baulked at the very idea. He wondered incredulously, "Good?"

His teacher squarely met his gaze. "Yes. The men who rescued me that day were members of the Konoha Military Police Force. They brought me to the Sandaime, and something Fugaku said convinced the Sandaime to open the Academy again."

It was strange to think about the Uchiha in a context unrelated to Naruto's own experience – without thinking of Sasuke. It made him feel uncomfortable. Nonetheless, understanding began tricking through. "They opened the academy so the kids would have somewhere to go."

"It was a turning point." Iruka nodded. "Sarutobi had just been reinstated as Hokage, but he was still hesitating to seize full control and –" There was very slight pause, in which his eyes flickered briefly over Naruto. "Well, there were other things on his mind."

Naruto looked back at him without comprehension.

Iruka cleared his throat. "Anyway, later, he told me the story."

* * *

From the height of the Hokage Tower, Sarutobi looked out at the ruined skyline, his eyes bunched with a thousand creases. The forest and the earth seemed like a tattered remnant before him. He remembered how the village had looked during the days of his former leadership, and it made grief swell around his heart. He pressed against his chest, feeling his age in a way he never had before.

He barely recognized his own voice when he spoke. "Where did you find them?"

Uchiha Fugaku stood behind him in the audience chamber. "In district 4. By the time we arrived at the house, it was too late. There was no rational that could be determined. It was senseless, brutal murder."

Sarutobi closed his eyes. He felt deadened by the story. Recently, there had been so many like it. "And the survivor?"

"We brought him back with us," Fugaku confirmed. "It seems that he had been protecting those children."

Sequestered in his voice was a trace of accusation. Sarutobi lifted his hand to respond to it, then let it drop. "I see. You can leave the boy here now. He'll be looked after."

Fugaku's eyes went as hard as splinters of onyx. "Should I turn him over to your shinobi? It was shinobi we rescued him from, and not interlopers either. They were men of Konoha, rouge, intent on despoiling a child. Things like this should not happen, and yet you've done nothing to stop it."

It was a brazen pronouncement, a challenge to his leadership without concession. That this representative of the Uchiha, with their strained relationship with the ruling house of Konoha, dared to say such a thing caused Sarutobi lift his head in sudden, sharp attention. An almost smothered flame of anger flickered back to life.

"What are you suggesting?"

Fugaku seized this opportunity. "The Yondaime was a leader that I respected, and his death was a tragedy, but turning inward will not honor him. You must do something, before the village loses itself to the beast even now."

"The fox is sealed," Sarutobi insisted immediately. Sweat had broken out over his skin, thinking of Kyuubi. If anyone knew the entire truth –

"I'm speaking of the aftermath of war," Fugaku interrupted. "The Uchiha are ready to help rebuild, but not by this ugly show of force as we have been doing. My people are getting angry. We're meant to keep order, not to be scarecrows and brutalizers. We are doing what we can. However," he punctuated. "There is some justice that only the Hokage can administer."

Sarutobi felt the edges of these hard words, fingered them with keenness that he had wetted during his years as a leader of men. The implications were far greater than the fate of one boy. "I know this," he finally said.

"Then begin making changes," Fugaku demanded. "Before this prevaricating becomes a weakness that cannot be abided."

The Sandaime turned, his back bent. "I never wanted a world where my children live in fear."

"Then it's time to rebuild."

"Yes," Sarutobi agreed. "Yes, it is time."

The Uchiha nodded, and in his face was a determined energy that Konoha and its allies would need to recover from this massive misfortune. "Where shall we begin, Lord?"

The Third thought of the survivor of the terrible massacre that had claimed small lives somewhere in the heart of his wounded Konoha, children who had been struggling to survive. It made this first decision easier than the many that would follow.

"The Academy."

* * *

"Of course, I didn't know these things at the time."

Naruto felt grim. Even knowing that the academy had been reopened didn't make the loss any more bearable. From the creases that had gathered on Iruka's face, he felt the same. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper as his mind ran over those old, troubled memories.

"So you went back to school."

Iruka shifted. "Yes. Once the dust settled, civilian children were placed in homes or sent to other villages that hadn't been hit so hard. Those of us who were shinobi started training again under the supervision of our academy teachers."

"What were things like then?" Naruto asked. "Were any of the classes the same?"

Iruka made a peculiar motion, as though he were reluctant to explain. "We were pushed very hard. Every rank of shinobi had experienced massive casualties. Replacements were needed."

The lamp flickered. The oil needed to be refreshed.

Iruka's eyes took on a glassy cast. "I remember that first day we all came back. No one laughed." A shake of his head. "It was like being in a graveyard. Missing faces. Usually, there would be people running up to greet each other, and parents saying goodbye, and the little ones playing. Not then. Instead the teachers lined us up, all of us in the yard with the front gate of the building sagging behind us, and told us how things were going to be from then on."

* * *

Iruka stood where he had been placed and kept his head down, unwilling to speak. He hadn't said much since he'd been brought to the Tower and put into the village's custody. The temporary housing had been terrible, be he hadn't been in any shape to protest. All he'd wanted was to be left alone. For the most part he had been – terribly alone – but that was all changing now. He'd been moved into the academy assembly hall that very morning and assigned a narrow strip of floor and a threadbare futon.

Now he was here, with the morning light still cold and heatless on his back.

The academy yard was barely recognizable. The grass had been seared, and lay in long strips of burned yellow and scorched black. A forlorn, one armed swing hung from a branch, it's seat scraping the ground. Iruka looked at the slowly spinning rope that secured it fixedly. He ignored the other students, most of which were avoiding each other's eyes anyway.

Finally, their head teacher limped forward to stand in front of their imperfect lines, looking gruffer and leaner than before. He spoke frankly to their young, worried faces: "This is not the same academy as before," he began. "We don't have time. Those of you in your final year will be assessed. If you qualify, you'll be promoted."

Iruka looked around and saw the members of the senior class. Some appeared troubled by the pronouncement, but most looked determined.

"If you still have family in Konoha, that's where you go directly after classes, or to the cleaning patrols to which you're assigned. Otherwise, you'll be housed here until we figure out what to do with you."

One of the youngest children burst into tears, overcome by the tension that was hanging in the air. A bigger student stooped and pulled them together, one an arm around the tiny, narrow shoulders. Iruka watched them as the academy sensei continued.

"When classes are in session, you'll take them seriously. We won't tolerate any foolishness. For all intents and purposes, you're soldiers of Konoha now, and it's your duty to defend this village by preparing yourselves for full service as quickly as possible. This is your number one priority. Do you understand?"

"Hai, Sensei!" A hundred voices answered, some hoarse, others smooth and high.

Iuka looked at the first year students and swallowed back nausea. The future stretched out in front of him like the color grey. Iruka tried, but couldn't feel anything. His body was dead, senseless flesh. Aside from that, the only thing left was the deepest, most solitary ember of a burning, bitter rage.

* * *

Naruto looked across the table to where his sensei sat. He looked older, and Naruto's hand went out involuntarily to grasp his hand. "Sensei?"

His teacher's shoulder's straightened. When he raised his eyes, it was with complete composure, as steady as Naruto had ever known him to be.

"Anyway," he said after a moment. "They pushed through the older students in only a few weeks, and the other groups were accelerated, too. That's why I graduated so early, just after I turned eleven. I wasn't truly qualified. It was five more years before I made chuunin, and I never had a jounin-sensei."

Naruto was flabbergasted. "I thought everyone had jounin-sensei."

Grimly, Iruka said, "Most of the shinobi still alive do, or did. You should know this, Naruto. One day it might be your decision."

And abruptly Naruto realized that this was what Iruka had been fighting against for most of Naruto's boyhood. Early graduation. Hasty promotions. Shinobi who were merely soldiers, not men and women. Mere fodder, he realized suddenly, and the sound of breathing from the next room became suddenly very loud. Tonight, they had been speaking of the Reconstruction, but now he wondered about the time beyond that, to what Iruka had faced in the line of duty as a fresh Academy graduate.

As though he sensed how troubled Naruto had become, Iruka spoke reassuringly. "It was a different time, Naruto. Even before the Kyuubi, Konoha was at war with other shinobi. We almost destroyed ourselves, all of us, by murder and deceit and competition. For more power, rather than for a safer and better life."

He thought about Kakashi-sensei, and about Sasuke and Itachi and Gaara, and then he remembered Iruka's uncomfortable words about lasting harm.

"But you survived."

"I saw a lot of my peer group die. But things improved, thanks to the Sandaime." A wan smile peeked out. "He eventually even made time for a traumatized brat known for setting rainbow colored tracking tags in people's showers."

A bark of laughter was startled out of Naruto at the very thought. "You were bad, Sensei!"

"Positively, but I was also very lonely and hurting a great deal."

"You were a prankster."

"That's a kind word for it," Iruka said. "More accurately, I was a thief and a troublemaker. I don't know what I was trying to do, exactly. Mizuki, for one, didn't have a very high opinion of what he called my 'bouts of melancholy'."

"Mizuki." The name still made Naruto uneasy, even after all this time and the man in question long since dead.

Iruka's brows furrowed, and as though in explanation he said, "I was alone, and he was my friend."

"Was he always, you know –"

"It's not an easy question. I look back, and I sometimes think I knew how angry he was. His father was also killed, and he experienced some of the same hardship I did. However, he could never really forgive the village. Later, I suspected it had even deeper roots in his history."

Naruto swallowed. "I don't really like thinking of him like that."

Iruka's smile was understanding. "It's harder not to feel pity when your enemy is a person, isn't it? But it's important to remember. Everyone you face has a story and secrets and sorrowful things they'd rather forget. Just like us."

Naruto wanted nothing so much as to forget Mizuki existed. That day and Iruka's words may have been the most important of his life, but every time he saw Sensei's shoulders stiffen when it rained, or on the rare occasions when he saw the man's bare back, he was reminded of how his naivety that had left such a permanent mark.

Which reminded him –

"Iruka-sensei, there was something else in the files that I didn't understand." Iruka raised his eyebrows at the mention of his snooping, but nodded for him to go on. "There was something about a criminal record. It was dated several months after the Kyuubi was released."

A true frown came over his teacher's face, hard and dark and unhappy. An unknown emotion passed over his face, before it finally subdued. He ducked his chin.

Concerned, Naruto asked, "Sensei?"

Faintly, his teacher waved him off. "Yes, that file. Not many people know about that. It is part of the answer to your question, though. About the kids and about, well, about you."

Something froze inside Naruto. Even without being told, he knew that this revelation could not be anything good. And suddenly, Naruto _knew_ he did not want to know. "S-sensei," he tried to stop the looming revelation, but Iruka would not let him go back. Eyes like a tide met his own in an inevitable flood of knowledge and water.

He said, "There's one last part of the story."


	7. There it Will Be, Waiting for You

**Chapter 7 – There it Will Be, Waiting for You**

* * *

In the very deepest part of the night, in the hours when midnight had passed, Iruka lay curled on a cot in the academy assembly hall. Around him, small sounds came from the other orphans being housed here, rustling blankets and the occasional keening cries that followed a nightmare's progress. Yet they all slept – uneasily, perhaps, but dead weary from the long, punishing day of work and training.

All except for Iruka, who stared unblinking at the rafters. Behind his eyes he saw dead children until the back of his throat was coated with hot, sticky bile. In an endless cycle, the images rose and choked him with guilt and fury. During the day, it made him sour and uncooperative. His defiance hadn't impressed his superiors. They had already labeled him: damaged, recalcitrant, troublemaker.

He didn't care. He didn't care about anything.

Except…

Iruka rolled over onto his side, the fabric harsh against his cheek. He thought about the work detail he'd been on that day, the rumors he'd heard. As he labored dragging stone and rubbish and broken boards, whispers had reached his ears that the Kyuubi – the killer of their parents, siblings, children, and friends – might be sealed inside a human being as it had been before. That the beast had lived when so many others had not. The very idea was unbearable.

His eyes shot open. He was breathing hard, and his hands had closed into fists. But even as his heart pounded with emotion, Iruka realized that _he_ could do something. If he really wanted revenge, then all he had to do was find whatever body they had found to house that monster and make it stop breathing.

* * *

Iruka wasn't a genius, not in the traditional sense, but he was cunning in ways that his superiors hadn't yet realized. It wasn't hard for him to figure out that there was only one person who was certain to know where the vessel of the sealed fox was being kept, and once he knew that, it was only a matter of time.

He used the fact that the Sandaime felt sorry for the children. Their presence was ignored when they came to the Tower to beg. The old man just patted their heads when they gathered around him or directed his shinobi to give them extra food. Iruka's lingering wasn't suspected. In a matter of days, he was able to follow the Third to an abandoned building on the outskirts of town. Why there, he didn't know. Perhaps it was thought to be safer, in that forsaken part of the city where no one went anymore. The old man went in and visited for a short time.

That was how Iruka found out about the baby.

At first it stunned him. He had expected something else. A chained, man-shaped creature, foaming and red-eyed with madness. He'd expected the Kyuubi, wrapped up in skin. Instead there was a pink squirming thing, tangled in a blanket. It was fretful, and made small distressed sounds when the Sandaime leaned over the basket. When it waved its tiny arms and the old man's eyes watered, Iruka had looked away.

An infant. Iruka sat back on his haunches and thought about what that meant. He felt a moment of doubt, but the kunai that he had been holding on the night he lost his parents bit into the flesh of his palm. He decided it didn't matter what face the Kyuubi was wearing. It was still a monster.

He entered the building at twilight. There was a nurse who stayed in the house, but she was inattentive. Sometimes she just left the thing upstairs and let it cry. No one noticed when Iruka slipped open the window and into the featureless room where a single basket sat in a square of moonlight. Iruka approached and called on the killing chakra that he had so recently learned to wield. Called on the misery of months and on the faces of the dead. He let those lost lives fill him up with righteous anger. Let it pound in his heartbeat and in the hand which he raised, steady around his weapon.

"Die," he whispered, and made the motion that would end it all.

Then the baby opened its eyes, and looked up at the boy who was there to assassinate it.

It had golden hair splayed out in a sparse halo. It had blue eyes and six lines, three on each side, that ran parallel down its cheeks – the only visible marks of the creature hidden inside. The baby looked up at him and blinked, its mouth opening in an almost comical way, and then it made a noise like a puzzled cry.

Iruka froze.

The baby blew a bubble with its mouth and spoke again – quiet, fussy sounds that any baby would make. He looked up at Iruka and again made that inquisitive noise.

Iruka's raised arm trembled. There was sweat on his forehead. All he had to do was put this knife though the soft, yielding belly, he told himself. That was all, and then everyone – the whole village of Konoha – would have the revenge it needed so badly. Blue, blues eyes. The baby looked up at him, a monster child, and it didn't look any different than any of the children Iruka had so recently lost. It was alone and unprotected, just like they all had been when someone came and murdered them. The baby wiggled its tiny fingers.

Iruka felt his hand fall limply to his side. His angry breaths quickly turned to sobs and he broke down and cried, falling on his knees as he wept. The kunai clanged, imbedding in the wooden planks of the floor. Outside the window, the stars were shinning in the sky like dancing balls of fire. Peering into the basket where the demon lay, Iruka clenched his teeth. It was so different from its former form. Iruka choked on the memory of the Kyuubi's breath. The memory was so huge in his mind. How could such a little thing cause so much pain?

"Do you even remember?" Iruka asked, fresh tears clinging to his nose as they rolled down his face. They stung his eyes, and he leaned against the makeshift cradle, exhausted. "You don't remember, do you?"

The baby yawned, its small, intense eyes squeezing shut for just a moment, and then it looked back up at Iruka, fixating on the boy it had so recently orphaned. Its lip trembled and it held out its hands with a whimpering, insistent cry. There was no mistaking that plea. Iruka sat back, his breath catching. He couldn't. But the baby looked as though it might begin to wail if ignored much longer. Already the pitiful whining was becoming loud enough to alert its caretaker.

Feeling he had no other choice, Iruka reached into the cradle and lifted out the tiny body, holding it against his chest and whispering, "Don't cry, don't cry."

Comforted by the voice, the baby quieted. It nuzzled its tiny face into Iruka's shoulder, making soft, sleepy noises. Iruka's hands shook as he held the infant, who clung to him as if he were the only source of comfort in a dark and frightening world. Looking into that helpless face, Iruka forgot that he was looking at the demon fox. All he could see was a boy, as vulnerable and alone as he was himself. Iruka held him and was flooded with fresh perspective.

"What will they do with you?" he wondered aloud. Would they let him grow up in the village like anyone else? Would he train at the academy? Or would the elders decide to kill him, as Iruka had been intent on doing? The Kyuubi had caused so much suffering. Moments ago Iruka would have gladly been the one to get rid of it once and for all. But this child, this was no demon.

Iruka kept rocking, even when he heard the pounding of sandals on the stairs in the hall.

* * *

"Naruto?"

Naruto was rigid in his chair. What did you say when the only parent you'd ever known admitted that, at one time, he had not only wanted to kill you but that he had actually tried to do it?

Iruka's voice was strained, and he was pale with regret. "Naruto, during the worst part of my life, alone and grieving, I thought killing a demon would stop me from being in so much pain. But even then, I wasn't able to harm you. I looked right into your face, and all I could see was Uzumaki Naruto. After that, hurting you wasn't even an option." He stopped talking, and the weight of his eyes was like heavy, dark stones. "I'm sorry, Naruto."

"Is that why you took care of me? Because of that night?" Naruto asked. The connection was clear. Iruka had felt guilty.

"It's not so simple as that. In part, the answer is yes. When you were older, and I met you again in the marketplace, tumbled over and covered with dirt –" And tear trails, all down the dust of his face, Naruto remembered. "– remembering that night did make me want to protect you."

Naruto didn't know what to say. He could still barely process what he'd been told. "So that's it then," he said, feeling numb. "That's why."

Very gently, Iruka reached over and squeezed his hand. "Not just. You were the most invasive brat I've ever met. I was sold on you after the first goodnight hug. You were practically falling out of the nightshirt I loaned you, and you wouldn't let go of my arm."

Naruto could recall the rundown apartment where Iruka lived when they first met. Vaguely, he could bring up images of a dingy, second-hand table, of cobwebs and dust like a mist over those earliest recollections. It hadn't been a nice place, but Naruto had been so unused to warmth – of the physical or human variety – that he had been totally unmoved by such petty, aesthetic concerns. And, yes, he had held on for dear life. Only when Iruka – so much younger then, still a teenager himself – had consented to pull their futons right beside each other had Naruto finally relented. He didn't remember the hug Iruka mentioned, but he did recall the sound of his Sensei's steady breathing, all night long. It was still a sound that comforted him, never failing lull him into a deep slumber.

He looked up into Iruka's face and was able to see the anguish there. The man had withdrawn his hand, and was holding his fingers twined anxiously together. Naruto knew that look. It was the fear of rejection by someone you loved. Iruka had told the truth, and now he was waiting.

Not so long ago, on a night like this, Naruto had asked the question: what was it that turned an orphan into a teacher? What had made him turn his home into a sanctuary and take in a monster that was a boy? Not a simple answer, Iruka had said, and he was right. Dead children. Deeds done in the dark. The epilogue of a war. And a baby. Naruto realized this with a sudden flash of insight; he had changed Iruka, too.

"Naruto, I –"

Iruka tried to speak, but before he could finish stammering, Naruto was up out of his chair and had pulled his old teacher into a tight hug. At the pressure of this embrace, Iruka relaxed. He wrapped his arms around Naruto and squeezed him in return.

When they drew apart, Iruka was wearing a relieved, though tired, smile. The deep waters of his eyes seemed tranquil for the moment, though Naruto was reminded that the story he had heard tonight was only the beginning of all that had made his sensei the way he was, just one small piece.

But there would be time for other stories later.

"I'm putting you to bed," he declared, and Sensei laughed and allowed himself to be pulled up bodily. Naruto imagined him at ten-years-old, alone in a world that often proved brutal and unfair. But neither of them was alone anymore. Together, they had made some kind of family, and no matter how it had started – with war or darkness or murder or pain – it had ended with adoption, affection, and a place to call home. That was most important thing. It was all Naruto needed to know.

Right?

* * *

Author's Note: There you are, reviewer. I hope you enjoyed "All Fall Down". Though expanded from its original form, the kernel of this story was actually the first thing I wrote for the Naruto fandom, and it was interesting to go back and take another look. As always, I appreciate your feedback and thank you for your readership.


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